The Guarding of our Most Precious; the Impacts of Witchery on the Minds of our Beloved Daughters

By

Lirov Sirteth

under patronage of House Kiro  

Professor Elite, Royal Conservatory

It is a fact, acknowledged throughout the galaxy, that we, the great Centauri people, are favored by our abundance of gods, spirits, and beloved ancestors, who conspire on our behalf to endow us with good fortune and wisdom, blessing us greatly in the areas of culture, social stability, joy in our households and Houses, and many other such arenas. To see evidence of such bold claims, one must only stroll the streets of the Capitol and marvel at the loveliness of our architecture, our delightful and moving art, and the happiness on the faces of our children as they frolic in our parks and schools. Such tangible delights flow from the prosperity of our ventures, at home and across the stars. One must concede, that while we have at rare times misstepped, as do all peoples, the magnificence of our worlds and the care with which the Throne and Centaurum have looked after the wellbeing of all Centauri, from the highest noble to the laborer in the fields, speaks to the rightness of our ways of being; to our ancestral traditions and knowledge that have served us well throughout our recorded history and before. 

In light of this clear fact, this author feels it is his sad duty to bring a scholar’s eye to the rise of witchery among our cherished women. For my esteemed colleagues at the institutions of higher learning on allied or dependent worlds, who may come across this small treatise in their explorations of our literature and commentary and are not gifted with as diverse a pantheon or as rich a spiritual heritage as we, I shall quickly sketch out the rough outline of the diversity of sanctioned praxis, and then my unfortunate anecdote and attendant analysis shall be illuminated, even for the uninitiated. 

Our pantheon consists of forty-nine divine beings, fifty if one is a progressive. In addition to these most highly elevated deities, we acknowledge many lesser spirits and otherworldly beings who may involve themselves in the affairs of a particular people, whether they be affiliated by geographic region, profession, social strata, or some other denominator. And, of course, who among us does not have a small altar tucked away to honor our ancestors of blood and spirit. Varying levels of belief and engagement in worship are found across the echelons of our society, but professions of atheism are rare, and one must only look to our great and storied past to think that someone; indeed, several someones, looks after us. Since we have so many deific beings to venerate and partner with, it is understood that many different shrines, temples, groves, sanctuaries, and more must exist to provide space and comfort to all worshippers, no matter their station. In addition to clergy, there are many societies, fraternities, and sororities that are dedicated to exploring the mysteries of the many spirits that dwell with us. To an untrained eye, it may seem that the diversity and breadth of the orthodoxy and orthopraxy that permeates our spiritual lives is so contradictory and diversiform that there are no overarching principles, no unifying threads that give structure and order to the proliferations of ritual and belief that so flourish in our hearts and minds. This is not so. 

The Great Maker is that thread, is the magnificent connection that gives structure and form where otherwise there would be only chaos and discord. While He is a later addition to our gods, not making Himself known until after the advent of our space age, He brought stability and order to the untamed wilds of our older forms of religion, creating a lovely garden from tangled brambles. And He has done this with the simplest of overarching commands; outlined in brief here.

As the sublime mind that gathered together the dust of the cosmos and brought forth all being and matter, the Great Maker is Order personified. Without His - and indeed, we are certain it is a ‘He’ to whom we direct our awe - governance over the early chaos of the universe, the ‘breath over the waters,’ as our human friends say in one of their holy texts, there would be nothing but swirling matter, discrete particulate with no form or meaning. The Great Maker organized the warp and weft of creation and gathered together the first members of our pantheon: the Weaver herself, Mo-Goth, the Lord of thresholds and that which lies beyond the Door, and Li the Dancer. He brought this and all worlds into being. While the subordinate three are great creators, teachers, and founts of joy in their own rights, without the guiding genius of the Great Maker, none would have coalesced from the Void, none would have thought to order the entropy into meaning; indeed, they would not have minds with which to think at all. It is through their subordination, their understanding that they are in the hand of the Great Maker to dispense with as He sees fit, that His elevation over them is right and good, that they are exactly where they must be in order for the universe to flow together so beautifully, that we as their offspring see and understand the roles we must play in our spiritual and physical lives, for does not the spiritual flow from the physical, and the physical from the spiritual? As the Great Maker is above all, and the Weaver below Him and only Him, Mo-Goth suborned to both above him, and so on and on, is it not obvious that there are two natural laws above all that must be obeyed? 

Hierarchies brought forth the cosmos. And all should know and honor their place within said cosmos.

If these are the simple precepts that govern the most mighty gods and goddesses, who through their passion, wit, and might, balance the stars, embroider the fates of galaxies and small Houses alike, sing forth the life and death of nebulae, who then are we to clamor for more from our rightfully ordained sovereigns? Must we not strive, though imperfectly, to imitate these most noble of examples? Even that mischievous deity, Ilvens, who stole Li’s clothing and tampered with the brevari casks of Venzen, finds himself subject to and grateful for the wisdom of Enu the warbringer, given authority over him to maintain order in the otherworlds. How much less should we be grateful for the wisdom of our betters that graciously and generously protect us from our own foibles and lack of foresight, in matters corporeal and incorporeal?

This then is the distinction between the beautiful, orderly tapestry of sanctioned, appropriate spirituality, and the snarled, poisoned skein of witchcraft. Though to the uninformed, the proliferation of secret societies and tiny sects throughout the layers and variations of our society may seem no different from a crone with a hidden altar in her cupboard, the distinctions of order and oversight, of obedience and deep understanding of one’s place in one’s home, House, village, province, and the Republic at large, are critical delineations that mark safe boundaries of thought and praxis. The lone woman, working her small spells and homely magics, may seem to represent no threat to the great might of the Republic, but have we not learned, over and over through our history, most clearly in our age of struggle against the threat of extermination at the hands of the Xon, that we stand together as one people, laborers and nobles together, united in the single purpose of our preservation and thriving? Our strength comes from the connections that bind us as one, regardless of social standing, and to spurn that unity, in a moment’s passing pique against husband or landlord, is to fray the cords that hold us together and give us strength. 

Trusting to my reader’s ability to follow my thesis, and to more deeply research the archives and publications of the Royal Conservatory should they require more detail, I shall now highlight in brief a case of witchery that has been brought to my attention, and use its sad example to show clearly the effects unsanctioned magics and spiritual ideologies that may harm and corrupt the entire feminine line of a family.

This tale was told to me, on the condition of the anonymity of all parties, by a youngest son of one of our most ancient noble Houses, a fact which should show that no lord or father or husband should consider his own domain free of risk of corruption. We must be vigilant in our role as guardsmen and protectors, not allowing our more tender feelings to excuse or overlook improper or unwise behavior by our wives, daughters, and wards. And in this instance, it was in fact not the passions of youthful folly that led to tragedy, but the maudlin sympathies of one who was certainly aged enough to know better. 

It sometimes occurs, that a young lady who is of age is subject to thrills of imagination that her marriage, when arranged, will be one of passion, romance, and a kind of youthful companionship that she has perhaps seen in books or media shared with us by our respected - but vastly differing in moral and practical values - allies, particularly those from Earth and Ssumssha. While I will not critique the habits of other races, who have their own unique evolution that has taught them differing, less complex ways of being than those we Centauri have grown into, I must point out the wide gulf of understanding between a simple woman who has barely left the care of her mothers, and cannot discern the twists of time and circumstance that have led other races and cultures to paths so alien, and a man of letters such as myself, who has studied our society from his boyhood and has the privilege of learning at the feet of many august and similarly learned men, and can therefore see the value in embracing our folkways and traditional wisdom. So it must fall to such a young woman’s guardians to shield her unformed thoughts from such outside influences that will only give her cause to grieve the fanciful union she has created in her mind. 

The anonymous young lady I speak of here was thought to be so sheltered by her father, but was contaminated unawares by foreign ideas of following paths of temporary, whimsical joy to her marriage partner, rather than paths of duty, obedience, and love of House. Paths that will lead to greater, enduring contentment as life unfolds, but which can be seen as onerous at the outset to the unwise. Such was her desire for youthful companionship, that the young lady, upon being informed of the arrangement of her marriage to a venerable member of the Centaurum, took to her bed in despair and could not be persuaded to see the gift she had been given.

Rather than the struggles of union that befall the young first wife to a similarly aged impetuous youth, neither partner having the wisdom of age, she would have the benefit of her husband’s greater experience in navigating the waters of matrimony. Mistakes and failures behind him, their marriage would be free of many of the errors common to a younger husband. As the fourth wife to a man secure in his position as head of his own home, and his status in society at large already established and uncontested, she could have been certain that the only responsibilities that would fall to her would be those that come naturally to her sex; the creation of beauty and serenity in her spaces, designing clever little gardens for the enjoyment of her home’s guests, indulgence in the arts - both for herself and any she wished to patronize - and giving herself over to her husband’s passionate affections, as is the natural delight and privilege of a newly made wife. Rather than submitting to the wisdom of her elders and authorities, and surrendering to the needs of her House and the plans of her father and betrothed, she withdrew into sullenness and obstinancy. The matter should have ended there and I have no doubts her intemperate rebellion would have been quelled by parental chastening in time, had another not foolishly intervened. 

In the family home, lived the father’s mother of blood. Her husband long deceased, the duty of her care passed to her oldest son. As is common and ordinarily harmless and beneficial, the grandmother loved and cared for her son’s children as an elder in his home. The bond between this grandmother and her willful granddaughter was long standing and strong. It is here a reader among my countrymen might say to himself, “Well, how fortuitous! Surely this wise, aged woman will instruct and lead her granddaughter to see sense and by virtue of her own fruitful marriage, impressing on the girl the beauty of obedience even when understanding is not present.” Not so. 

It is here I must depart from the reliable narrative provided by the son of this House who related the tragedy to me, and lean on the testimony of a handmaid in the grandmother’s service who bravely informed her superiors of the perfidy that had taken place. 

This servant, a new member of the household staff, still learning her chosen vocation, was assigned to service in the bedchambers of this elderly lady, as the lady had, by virtue of her station, assisted in the training of many such household servants and was remarked upon for her ability to gently mold the most inept of lowly maidens into competent staff. This maid, while expressing emphatically her gratitude for her position in the household, and her honor to serve so apparently noble and kind a lady, did confess to that most insidious of vices, so common to her sex; curiosity. Despite the aid that her mistress required in many areas due to her advanced age, there was one wardrobe which was always locked, despite its prominent location in her mistress’s private rooms. The key was not to be found among the keys to which the maid had access and the wardrobe was conspicuous for its unused status. The maid noted though that there was no dust upon the lock, as might be expected from a defunct piece of furniture. Clearly this was some oft used storage to which she was not privy. As is the habit of the young or underemployed, she continued to observe this curio as she went about her duties, hoping for the day when the wardrobe would be unlocked and she might satiate her inquisitiveness. 

That opportunity did come, but rather than satisfy her girlish, if impertinent, curiosity, the maid found much worse than indiscreet mementos or a dead husband’s papers. There was, in this unassuming wardrobe, an altar most profane. 

The contents of the wardrobe and its altar were as follows:

A seer’s black mirror (odd because no history of sight is recorded in this woman’s maternal line),

One antique coutari and sheath,

Several red and white candles, inscribed with arcane symbols and dressed with the following herbs and oils,

Dried and tinctured herbs of jirtul, chittu, and ruros, all associated through folklore with impotence and death, 

A young girl’s hair, tied in a bundle, 

Oils infused with sulfur and copper ore, 

Dried male organs from several species of vermin

Threads of red, black, grey, and white,

Homespun fabric and fabric shears, well cared for and used,

A faceless doll, soaked in the tinctures and oils, embroidered with House symbols to link him to the betrothed of the young lady, impaled on the blade of the coutari,

And finally, a journal, filled with occult writings and personal notes.  

Upon finding these items, the maid was quite frightened and sensibly went to find the Mistress of Keys, and ask what she should do. The Mistress, aware of the significance, if not practical use of these items, promptly found the lady of the house - the mother of the recalcitrant bride - and informed her of the perversion that may have taken place.

I shall here briefly highlight the items that let the maid and Mistress of Keys know that this was the altar of a witch and not a private altar to the elder woman’s ancestors. I am certain my fellow men of letters in the field of socio-religious commentary are already aware of this information, but knowing that the less informed fellow scholars of Earth or Minbar or similar may read this small work in the libraries of our shared halls of learning, I feel I must elaborate for clarity and to make the threat take shape. 

First, it is unthinkable that a woman would own a blade. While we of course have historical martial arts that are the province of women, that have their own lovely weapons and forms, the coutari is set aside as the rightful domain of men. Even in our deep past, stories of women wielding a blade, even in the most desperate of circumstances of self defense, are exceedingly rare. Since the reign of Emperor Aravvi, that noted duelist and reformer of combat dueling into the sport we still honor today, women have not been permitted to own and are discouraged from handling at all, this noble weapon. I can think of no legal justification that would lead to the concealing of a coutari in a woman’s private chamber. 

Red and white candles, while innocuous separately, together invoke the twin strands of birth and death, calling attention of displaced spirits on either side of that veil; both homeless infants, who were not properly welcomed to their new bodies and left to find a more worthy family and became lost, and those who lived aimless lives and had no worth to show at the Door of Mo-Goth to pay their way to the afterlife and reincarnation and now wander as worthlessly in death as they did in life. 

The candles and the coutari are the items that immediately notify the witness that wickedness was planned at this altar. 

The herbs need very little explanation, except for the note that while jirtul and ruros are harmless and come by their associations through the shape of their leaves, chittu is viciously toxic and is a main ingredient in many poisons. It is in fact something of a wonder that a tincture of this herb was made with no accidental deaths.

The oils of sulfur and copper are likewise noxious and best not to be handled, though they do not begin to approach the lethality of chittu. 

I trust that the inclusion of the male organs will leave little doubt as to their purpose, and I decline to elaborate further. 

The threads were used to make the curse poppet and as you know the aforementioned associations of red and white from above, I shall add that black is widely used in many magical workings and religious rites, as is grey. Black may be apotropaic in this context, protecting the witch from a rebound of her curse and grey is generally used to indicate that the practitioner will walk in the otherworlds or on the boundary lines. As I have made clear, we have many strains of sanctioned magical practice, and grey is often used by seers who wish to press into the unknown, or by traditional healers who use trances to divine the source of affliction, among many more such practices. In this context, I would expect that the witch used this candle and color to assist her while she believed she left her body to torment her alleged victim. 

The fabric was used to make the poppet of the victim, the intended husband of the daughter of the house. The shears are quite old and I assume they were part of the fripperies and miscellany passed from mother to daughter without the oversight of a will, as women are wont to do.

Finally, the book was a record of several generations of malfeasance along this maternal line. Contained therein were recipes, rites, spells, and perversions of accepted doctrine. The history of the courtari is revealed; stolen from the witch’s grandfather when he was on his deathbed, she claims it was a gift from him to her, a private token to acknowledge her strength and the old man’s regret that she was not a boy and Lord of the House in the stead of her brother. Clearly the delusion of a long unwell creature. There are many workings that in another book would not go amiss as a woman’s rightful domain; petitions for a healthy child, safe birthing, honest servants, and suchlike. There are also blasphemous invocations of the wives of Venzen, petitioning them to lend the witch the strength of will to deny a cruel husband his rights of marriage or to turn his attentions from his wives to the harmless indulgences of the dinner table. Many other such warped philosophies and invocations and evocations are included. I will reproduce only one here; the spell, and its prelude of the witch’s musings, that the witch attempted to use against the lawful betrothed of her misled granddaughter. I show it only to demonstrate the unwell mind of this crone, to demonstrate that even behind the most staid and well respected facade can lie a twisting of spirit, a rebellion against the proper order that the Great Maker has given us. 

“...I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to see her grieve so deeply and rightly. Her father is a fool; a puppet for Lord [REDACTED for the family’s privacy], and hasn’t the wit to see that she’ll be husk of herself in a year’s span. He wants her only for her breaking. Bored with influence and pulling strings in the Centarum and court, and moving on to my sweet girl in his dotage. I’ll not have it. I think a poppet to call his soul’s attention and perhaps a draught if I can find a way into his chambers. Here’s the rough shape of it then;

Fathers of my fathers, lords of my line, 

With this blade given me,

Taken in silence and grief, 

I do stand and say that this shall not be. 

By sacred vine and baneful herb, 

I cut her free. 

On this ground that is mine,

I show my grandmother’s grandmothers that I have held their gift, 

And now I use it. 

I cut her free. 

Unborn and lost, born and discarded, I call your infant wrath to steal his breath. 

Wanderer, purposeless, see here, I give your life shape. I call your shame to steal his breath. 

With oil foul, 

Poison on my pretty hand,

I defile his hearts. 

Death in my claws,

Coutari through his lying throat,

I cut her free.”

There followed a technical description of the steps taken to create the tinctures and oils, a record for future evils, better suited to an archaic study of chemistry than this brief essay.

Upon finding these shocking tools and words, the Lady of the house summoned her husband to show him what wickedness this old woman, his first mother, had wrought against the future of their House, and indeed, against the future of the granddaughter she purported to hold so dear. 

The Lord of the house, summoned home from his offices, acted promptly in containing these wretched acts and this miserable woman. Wardrobe relocked and taken to the Lord’s private study to be given to the proper religious authorities for destruction, old woman safely contained in her denuded chambers with a guard outside, the girl was dragged from her bedchamber and told that she would be married within the week whether she agreed or not. After all, while one does hope that a reluctant girl will see sense and go gracefully, the marriage is consented to by her father. She is a wife as soon as his signature is upon the page. 

Had it all ended there, the witch's malign influence could perhaps be overlooked. Granddaughter safely wed and under the firm, guiding hand of her husband, an obedient, peaceful wife could be made of her, and with greater attention from her son to her activities, the grandmother could have lived her final days in cosseted solitude. Alas, the toxin had spread too far. 

After informing his daughter that her rebellion would be tolerated no longer and sending her to her own mother to prepare for her nuptials, this harried Lord went to his mother’s rooms to address her silly affectations towards ethereal power and grasping at authority that was not hers to hold. Thinking to find her contrite and distraught, pleading for his mercy that she not be turned over to the harsher care of local magistrates, we can only sympathize with his shock when he found her dead by her own hand, having taken some substance secreted about her chamber that she had no doubt prepared in advance for such a time. 

Her son of blood, upon finding her, was understandably distressed, and sent for his first wife, who you will recall had been charged with the care of her daughter. Attending to her husband’s command, this lady left the unhappy girl at the heart of this story and rushed to his side, along with his second wife, to verify the witch’s demise and comfort him. The wretched girl was left alone and unwatched. From here, I have only speculation. 

No one thought to see to the girl until much later, after the authorities and priests had been called, all thoughts of discretion cast aside in the shock of the old woman’s self destruction. In that time, talk of the death passed through the servants to the ear of the girl. Unattended, presumably mourning her beloved grandmother, she simply walked out of her home and to the nearest transportation hub. From there she found her way to the city, to the port, and from there, she disappears. There was one considerable withdrawal of ducats from the grandmother’s personal maintenance account, adding theft to this reprobate child’s crimes. With no record of her departure from Prime on any Centauri liner, she is presumed lost to the criminal underworld, unequipped as she was for life without the benevolent guidance of father or husband. 

And what of the bereaved and defrauded husband, Lord [REDACTED]? I must confess, I much debated the inclusion of his fate. I must be transparent, reader. I myself do not much believe in gods, witches, and curses. Much that the credulous would attribute to gods and ancestors, I can see is simply the turn of the planets and the progression of time. As I read in a quaint book of Terran magical thought, ‘presume the mundane before the magical.’ Indeed. I can see wisdom where it is offered. Regrettably, the final thread of this case threatens my agnosticism. 

The witch’s book notes the time she cast her invocation. She sent her will forth the night before the altar and its evil was discovered. At the approximate time that she was confined to her rooms and took her life, Lord [REDACTED]’s hearts simply stopped. While he was somewhat advanced in years, and the same fate befell his father, he was in apparent good health until his death, with no concerns from his physicians. No toxins were found in his blood, so it seems unlikely that any of the witch’s poison reached him through treachery. I must be candid. I do not know what to make of this, and will not presume to instruct the reader where I myself have no firm opinion. 

Of course, despite the discretion of the law, of the priests, word does travel. I fear that the siblings of this foolish girl will be greatly hampered in their own marriages and futures now, for who would wish to marry into a line so marked by deviance in two distinct generations? Indeed; who will be willing to cooperate with a man who was so blind to the apostasy and rebellion active for so long under his own roof? The disobedience of the missing girl and her wicked grandmother may end this House. 

This is one such story, and where there is one story, there are ten more untold. Do not think that any House or home is safe from foolish, grasping behavior. If such an elevated lady could seek to defy the will of her betters, how much more could the tired peasant, or the wife of a newly sworn Vocator, hungry for the increase of her husband’s prestige, seek out crooked paths to shorten the paths to their desires?

Let this be a lesson to all fathers, husbands, and guardians of our cherished women: the mind of a woman, left unguarded, is as a garden left untended - prone to wild growth, entangling itself in folly and poisoning the very soil. This tragedy unfolded not from malice, but from unchecked sentiment, from the misguided belief that a woman, however aged or esteemed in her household, may wield authority better left to the hands of men. Had this girl been properly guided, had her grandmother’s affections been suborned to the the wisdom of her son, had the old woman’s idle hands been occupied with the duties proper to her station, how much grief might have been spared? It is not cruelty to set boundaries upon our daughters; it is kindness. It is not oppression to place a strong hand upon their choices; it is protection. Let not the men of the Republic be lax in their sacred duty, for in our vigilance lies the strength of our Houses, and in the strength of our Houses, the enduring might of the Centauri people.